1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to modular housing units and a method for assembling modular housing units from intermodal cargo containers.
2. Prior Art
Natural or man-made disasters frequently create a need for temporary housing that can be quickly transported to the site of the disaster and erected in a form suitable for human habitation. After-market intermodal shipping containers of the type used to transport cargo have been adapted to serve this need. For example, Wiley, Jr. et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,706,614 disclose a modular building having a steel shipping container core. Inner and outer wall coverings are secured to the corrugated side walls of the container and a laminate ceiling structure is secured to the interior surface of the container roof. A roof cap having a configuration corresponding to the roof of the container is mounted on the roof of the container, and the floor of the container provides a subflooring for the finished flooring of the building. The building thus formed has the disadvantage of having an aesthetically unappealing elevation. A building fabricated from a cargo shipping container disclosed byjohnson et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,654 is similarly aesthetically displeasing.
The problem of aesthetics has been partially overcome by Franz in U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,619. Franz discloses a kit of structural building elements for rapid erection and assembly to form a living space having a ridged roof, wherein the elements are linked together and comprise a central prism-like element and corresponding outer elements. The elements are arranged so that in a first state, suitable for transportation, they form an essentially cuboid structure having overall dimensions of a standard 40 foot cargo container and, in an erected state, the outer parts are raised to form a roof ridge line. Erection of a building using the kit can be effected without the need for heavy lifting machinery by pushing the outer elements inwardly so that they slide up the sloping faces of the prism like central part. While the resulting structure presents a more appealing elevation than the above-referenced structures of Wiley, Jr. et al. and Johnson et al., it is achieved at the cost of livable floor space.